This speech was given 50 years ago on Sept 12th 1962. I’ll be honest, I’ve never watched the whole thing until today. It’s still incredibly powerful and poignant. The way he speaks about the national effort in space is hard to believe. There’s a surreal point where he actually BRAGS about tripling NASA’s budget which is followed by an applause break. What a change we’ve had in 50 years.

“However, I think we’re going to do it. And I think we must pay what needs to be paid. I don’t think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job…and it will be done by the end of this decade!” How could they fail with talk like that?!

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Neil Armstrong’s death on August 25th, 2012 has affected me more than I thought it would. He is, without a doubt, an American hero, but heroes die everyday. The difference with Armstrong is he wasn’t just a hero, he was a living mythological, enigmatic figure who’s exploits are the stuff of legend. Many to this day still have trouble accepting his achievements as reality. “Walking on the moon” was literally a cliche for achieving the impossible….until Neil.

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Continuing with the Willy Wonka Creature theme I started a few weeks back, here is my version of the Vermicious Knid. I loosely based it on Roald Dahl’s description given in the book sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory entitled Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

In this scene an Oompa Loompa is startled by a Vermicious Knid while picking Snozzberries at night. You see, it’s easier, however more dangerous, to pick Snozzberries at night because they glow in the dark. Dahl never gives a description of Snozzberries so I just winged it. I thought a bio-luminescent fruit was a cool idea and fit the look of the Oompaland I’m creating.

Wonka mentions 2 more creatures; the Hornswogglers and Snozzwangers. Will I draw these last two beast? Probably. But don’t hold your breath. Check out more of my work on my Illustration page.

Hello, True Believers! I wanted to let you know I’ve posted some new drawings over on the Illustration page. I’ve been bad about updating this site with new drawings but hopefully I’ll be better about it in the coming months.

The above image is a creature mentioned in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the Whangdoodle. He’s known for eating 10 Oompa Loompa for breakfast and thinking nothing of it.

Let’s get one thing straight. Conan’s one of my favorite people on the planet. So when I was one of the fortunate 14,000 who got tickets to see him tape in Chicago, I about lost my mind. I have been a Conan fan for about 15 years so it was definitely a dream come true. The day was such a big deal that I was painfully aware of every passing minute so I thought I’d transcribe it for you after the jump. Enjoy!

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If you didn’t hear about it, Venus passed in front of the Sun yesterday..and it was awesome. Don’t worry though, it’ll do it again in 2117 so you can just catch it then. The image above was captured by NASA SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory), a satellite orbiting the sun. Here’s a link to a bunch more fantastic images.

The Adler Planetarium did a big event for the Transit, setting up dozens of telescopes and hosting live feeds from NASA TV. Around 5000 people showed up making it the most popular event they’ve hosted since 2003! Hit the jump for a few images from my Adler experience. Read More »

The current Administrator of NASA, Charles Bolden uttered the most badass phrase in the history of space today: “Godspeed Dragon.”

What the who is Dragon?! It’s an unmanned space capsule designed, built, and launched by SpaceX atop their in-house Falcon 9 rocket. Eventually the capsule will hold up to 7 crew members. The brainchild company of Elon Musk is hoping to become the first private enterprise to visit the International Space Station. Today this company took a giant leap in that direction with another successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket, which has suffered delays recently do to software and hardware issues. More on this after the jump: Read More »